let's talk about Oprah for just a moment...

...I recorded Thursday's Oprah and am watching it this morning. I feel sorry for her. The show is called, "The Secret" and she has invited a panel of 'experts' on the secret of the universe -- the secret to living the greatest life possible for you -- the secret that will allow you to get out of debt, lose weight, make millions, and appearantly have the whitest teeth on the planet.

It seems that Norman Vincent Peale should be calling his lawyers 'cuz these guys have just repackaged "The Power of Positive Thinking".

Really, Jesus must be crying right now.

This panel of experts have just 'shanghaied' the truth of the King of the Universe and are taking all the credit for it ... as well as selling it in their DVD for a small cost.

They are taking the credit for Jesus' simple truth, "As a man is in his heart, so is he..." (Luke 6:45)

Now the guest on the show who is in $43,000 in debt because she and her husband spent money to feel more in control of their lives and then the man left her with the daughter and the bills is saying "I am sick and tired of being the victim" and the panel is giving her a list of tips and techniques to visualize her life of freedom ("close your eyes each morning and see yourself being able to do whatever you'd like to do with your daughter") This panel is so full of themselves and Oprah is so busy trying to prove to them that she is just as 'hip' to the secret of the universe that I literally feel sick to my stomach. Oh how I wish Jesus could just walk onto this stage and turn it over in righteous anger.

Now they're telling her that if she will forgive her husband and claim her birthright of feeling her best best about being a woman and a mother, "Claim it now, sweetheart" she will be able to walk in freedom. And Oprah responds, "Hallelujah!". And they are instructing her to be grateful and live in forgiveness and believe that she has the right to love herself. My heart is sobbing. Church where have we been? The truth is being robbed from our lips and repackaged without the true author's name. Our world is starving for Jesus Christ and the freedom he brings.

They are shouting over each other in order to be heard as the smartest, most successful people in the universe. I am thankful for the humility of my Savior. I am repentant for the times when I have ignored and even despised the truth of His upside down rules of freedom. (the greatest is the least, the rich squeeze through the needle's eye, the first shall be last...)

Woe to this group of people who worship the creature over the Creator and to us as a people...
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

And so I'm sorry for Oprah because I believe God has called her name and she has refused to allow Him to take her life. What a sad, sad waste...

overwhelming grief...